Wood You Look at That?

It’s not often that an environmental organization takes out a full-page ad in the New York Times to praise a forest-products company, so it’s safe to say that Boise Cascade Corp. has done something extraordinary. This week, the company reconfirmed its commitment to phasing out old-growth harvesting in the U.S. by 2004 and agreed to adopt new eco-friendly policies, including no longer buying wood from endangered forests, giving purchasing preference to suppliers whose wood comes from certified forests, and tracking the origin of wood products it buys from other suppliers. In the eyes of many environmental organizations (including Rainforest Action Network, which sponsored the Times ad), the new policies have transformed Boise Cascade from a despised industry dinosaur to a model of environmentally friendly forestry.